Perception and reality

Yesterday, I read a headline, “European parliamentarians have slammed Pakistan for harbouring militants, with one of them saying terrorists who carried out attacks in India did not come from the Moon.”

This implied that the terrorists were sent from Pakistan. I was shocked to see the perception of European countries about Pakistan. Could anybody make them aware of the genesis of the Kashmir dispute, or the numerous friendly Pakistani gestures for peaceful dialogues to resolve their disputes, which India has disdainfully spurned?

Did they have an idea of the long history of India’s international commitments over Kashmir or its brazen-faced act of fiddling with its Constitution to wriggle out of all those commitments made to the world community? Is Pakistan being maligned because of India’s vicious propaganda to conceal the reality of this issue? All these questions forced me to take a fresh look at the relationship between perception and reality, which plays havoc in the scheme of things.

The fact is that our entire life revolves around perception and reality, while the irony is that where perception is often temporal and unreal, the reality is a more fixed and permanent attribute.

Yet, both interchange and overlap over time. This process is also subject to a continuous flux. Thus, the reality remains elusive and neither one nor the other remains true for all time to come. And this game of hide-and-seek between perception and reality brightens the marvellous tapestry of our existence.

Just imagine what would have happened if perception and reality had been the same thing. I think that would have been the end of our living. All the variety, bite and spice in life is due to varying perceptions and realities. At the time of Monroe Doctrine, fast-developing America thought that if the powers in the Eastern hemisphere were refrained from interfering in the affairs of the Western hemisphere, the world would be a peaceful place to live. This perception, indeed, held for nearly a hundred years.

In the meantime, the interests of America were very well served as the European powers were prevented from occupying the newly-liberated Latin American countries from the Spanish yoke. At that time, the perception of the Doctrine was that it was universally just and equitable. But later during the two ensuing World Wars, the bloated American Imperialism knew no bounds. Being a Big Brother, America thought it most virtuous to have his fingers in each pie of the countries of the Eastern hemisphere. Thus, what was a just perception turned out to be a horrible reality.

Now, take another example. Our perception of the British Rule in Indo-Pakistan is one of the most tragic and unhappy developments. Most of us feel that for well over two hundred years, we were held in their sway. They enslaved us, looted our wealth, corrupted our culture and imposed their values upon us. Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out to be an untenable perception. Had the British not made their forays into our land at that point in our history; we would have been much poorer in culture and civilisation than what we are today. A prudent guess is that we would still have been engaged in internecine intra-communal conflicts; fighting with our primitive weapons like daggers and swords. Anarchy and disorder would have held terrible sway over the entire land and the recognised canons of civilised behaviour and morality would have been reduced to “everyone for himself and the devil take the hind-most.”

The perception and reality are both transient, and nothing is absolute. Their presence adds much thrill and excitement to life

The British, despite their colonial ambitions, gave us a civilisation, where we proudly feel equal with other nations. They gave us the most extensive and efficient system of railways (of which we have made a mess), the most modern and efficient canal irrigation system, the world has ever known (which has been a subject of our criminal neglect), and the best legal system of civil and criminal justice, based on five thousand years of accumulated wisdom, since the time of Hammurabi (whose enforcement still defies us). Thus, what appears to be a horrendous perception to an unsuspecting layman turns out to be the most un-rebuttable reality, upon close examination. Some perceptions hold fast to reality. For instance, corruption is the bane of our society. This is agreed to by all and sundry. Now, there is also a growing perception that knowledge and education are the real panaceas, which can salvage our present ills. And as we become more aware of our world, our perceptions and realities identify and overlap each other, which I think, is the hallmark of our collective consciousness. Thus, the more the gap between the perception and the reality is bridged, the more we become closer to being civilised and progressive. It is very likely that after we eliminate corruption and attain universal education, we expect to grapple with still greater challenges but our perception in the world would be that of a strong but peace-loving nation. The perception and reality are both transient, and nothing is absolute, and that is why, as I had said earlier, their presence adds much thrill and excitement to life.

It is often said that perceptions are stronger than reality and it is true in most cases. Perceptions are formed by social interaction, media stories and some unique personal experiences. Perception, in other words, is a single unified awareness derived from sensory processes while the reality is one and absolute. It refers to the state of things as they are, rather than as one might wish them to be. Perceptions are often built and believed in to escape the rigours of enquiry and research. Hasty generalisations are readily accepted by lazy minds. People also take shelter behind those generalisations to escape social responsibility.

“Entire society is bad; what can you do?” such people say. But this is negative thinking. Firstly, everybody is not bad. Secondly, even if most people are bad, what have we done to reclaim them?

Even if we cannot change the entire society, we can at least change ourselves. To an extent, we can also change our family members and friends, for the better. But for that, we will have to set a good example of our image to society. Now, that poses a bit of challenge, which we may not want to accept. Perception is easy to hold, and it comes to us naturally because it is what we have learnt from our interactions with the world. Against this, the knowledge of reality requires a lot of hard work and research, which few can afford. Thus, perception, being of a lower order, is far greatly spread in humanity, which holds a power stronger than the reality itself and is unfortunately known to very few people. Thus, perception should not be brushed aside because it is not close to reality. On the other hand, our endeavour should be to bridge the gap between perceptions and realities as far as possible.

The reality of our present political system is that our present regime inherited a very bad economy from its past rulers, who ran the country from huge borrowings from IMF and other agencies; leaving the country on the verge of bankruptcy. Our new leader strongly feels that elimination of corruption and retrieval of the stolen money is his top priority, for which the relevant machinery is working in top gear, while more ambitious plans of development have been temporarily put off.

In matters of our foreign policy, there is complete uniformity in the establishment for maintaining peaceful relations with our neighbours, which we have even practically demonstrated.

All impartial observers say that Pakistan is heading from despair to hope. WE have vowed to show to the world that in the days to come, our negative perception will evaporate to give place to the absolute reality of us being a self-respecting and peaceful nation, guided by the principle of “live and let live.”

The writer is a former member of the Provincial Civil Service, and an author of Moments in Silence